Unfortunately I just haven’t had the time to post this week due to school, doing some work for a friend, and other obligations. Next week is looking pretty busy too, but as always, I didn’t want to go too long without posting something. So I put together some fun anime and related pictures I’ve found around the Interwebs lately…
Archives for February 2015
Fandom and the death of adulthood
Some months ago The New York Times published an article that I found quite intriguing and surprisingly applicable to anime fandom despite being seemingly unrelated to it. It’s called “The Death of Adulthood in American Culture” and it involves a film critic for The Times discussing how American society has changed over the decades in terms of what it means to be an adult; he cites popular TV shows, movies, and books that reflect how the old view of adulthood – being part of an authority-following, gender role-centered society – has been losing popularity in favor of a freer and more rebellious idea of adulthood, most notably one that embraces childhood and supposedly childish things rather than cast them off…that sounds like anime fandom to me!…
Even more anime lateral thinking puzzles
This is the third installment of a series of posts where I come up with anime-themed lateral thinking puzzles for you guys to solve – well, technically I don’t come up with them myself as much as take already existing puzzles and give them an anime twist ;) I wrote the first post in 2011 and the second in 2013, so it seems like they’re becoming a two-year tradition! But anyway, for those who aren’t familiar with them, lateral thinking puzzles are basically riddles where you have to use critical thinking and logic in order to solve them. I’ve always enjoyed these kinds of things, so what better way to present them than in anime-style!
A beginner’s guide to competitive Pokemon battling
Like many Pokemon players, I started playing the games as a kid in the late 90s, before the competitive metagame existed. I first started taking note of things like EV training and IVs in the Diamond and Pearl era, but when I looked up information about the competitive side of Pokemon, I got scared away by all the mathematical equations and fan-made jargon I’d find on sites like Bulbapedia, Smogon, and Serebii. It wasn’t until Black 2 and White 2 came out in 2012 that I really wanted to give competitive Pokemon battling a try…and it turned out to be easier than I thought! As of now I’ve put in almost 600 hours of gameplay on my copy of Pokemon X, and 150 hours on my Omega Ruby, breeding competitive pokemon and trying them out on the Battle Spot and local tournaments. It does take a lot of time and experience to get good at it, but you don’t have to do any complicated math or spend hours and hours of tedious grinding in order to put together a decently competitive pokemon team, especially in the current 6th generation of Pokemon games that have made breeding and training the right pokemon much easier. So I wanted to put together this very beginner-friendly guide for any Pokemon players that are interested in trying their hand at the competitive side of the games…